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Topic: Another Name Question (Read 4402 times)

A woman whose maiden name is Smith marries a man named Jones while in college. Under the name of 'Jones' she goes on to be internationally recognized in her field of study.

Some years later, she and Mr. Jones divorce. Because her career has been established under the name of 'Jones' she keeps it.

A few years after the divorce, she meets a man named Henderson and they marry. What do you do in a case like that?

She doesn't want to keep her ex-husband's name but that is how she is known. She wants to adopt her new husband's name but that could cause confusion when she submits a scholarly paper for publication. Jane Jones is known in the field. Jane Henderson is not.

Hyphenating her ex-husband's name and that of her current husband just seems wrong.

BTW, neither her ex-husband nor her current husband are known in her field of research.

The people I have known in this situation kept the professional name for profession purposes and used the new married name for social purposes.

It is pretty clear why, as you mentioned because of the confusion. I can't imagine doing research on someone and having to juggle names like that. It is confusing enough as it is. It also gets pretty dicey if there are legal problems.

As I understand it, a doctor always goes by the name she received her degree and license under for that very reason.

Most of the women I know who published under their maiden name retained it for professional purposes after they got married. One hyphenated it, which allowed her name to still show up in a lit search. The rest just retained their professional name, even for social situations.

I know of an athlet that hyphenated her name once she got married. After a few years of being known as Claudia Künzel-Nystad the press and the comentators in her field of sports started calling her Claudia Nystad as she requested.I thought that made the transition fairly easy because already recognized the combination Claudia Nystad altho she was still known as Claudia Künzel-Nystad

The people I have known in this situation kept the professional name for profession purposes and used the new married name for social purposes.

It is pretty clear why, as you mentioned because of the confusion. I can't imagine doing research on someone and having to juggle names like that. It is confusing enough as it is. It also gets pretty dicey if there are legal problems.

As I understand it, a doctor always goes by the name she received her degree and license under for that very reason.

This is my opinion. Socially and legally she can be known as Jane Henderson, but she can publish articles as Jane Jones still. I publish articles in my field of research and no one has ever asked me to give proof of the name I'm publishing under. She should definitely expect some confusion when it comes to things like professional mailings or conferences, though--if she goes off to a conference she'll have to decide if she'd rather be called Dr. Jones or Dr. Henderson for the week. Probably I would go with Jones as it's still a professional setting, but things could get weird at, say, a cocktail hour to which guests (such as her husband Mr. Henderson) are also invited. Though in that case people would probably just assume Jones was her maiden name.

Once at work we had a service contract worth several thousand dollars messed up because the agent working on it, whose name was on the paperwork, got married and took on her husband's last name professionally during the middle of the process. The documents went from referencing "Margaret Miller" to "Margaret Brown" and people started rejecting them, thinking we'd switched agents or something like that--all has to be consistent, apparently. We only realized what was going on because the woman's first name was rather unusual, and it seemed unlikely that two different people at the company would both have it.

In her position, I'd probably stick with Jones, at least on a professional level. I don't think there's anything wrong with hyphenating her name, either. Lots of people do it. She's been divorced a long time. Nobody is going to associate her ex's name with her ex; they're going to associate it with her and her body of work.

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The Lady in question has a Master's Degree. She does not have a Doctorate.

Everyone agrees that hyphenation is not an option. None of the names involved are common. Let's say that hyphenating her married names would make her name almost identical to that of the sculptor who created Mount Rushmore.

She has decided to go with the name of her second husband and will make sure that appropriate people are informed.

I think if ever there was a time Jane wanted to change 'Jones', now is the time to do it. It's a positive rather than a negative--ie 'Yay! I'm getting married!' rather than 'So I'm getting rid of my ex's old name...' and everyone will understand it.

that said, if she doesn't mind being Jones, I don't think she should feel pressured to change it, and going by one professionally and the other socially is pretty common.

Granted, it's a problem that is "out of my realm of experience" too, and I'm a woman. But yeah, it's a cultural difference.I mean, I /knew/ that there are countries where women change their name when they get married, but I had never really thought the consequences through. Seems so messy to me, when I start thinking about it...

As other posters have said, she can use one name professionally and another socially.

As you can see from my siggy, I'm Catherine Winters. But that's my professional name - not my legal, social name. I have no trouble and quite a bit of benefit from separating my personal and professional lives with different names, and I know several other women who have, as well. (Of course, I got to pick my name from scratch, so there's little chance I'll come to hate it or have life circumstances change it, but still.)

Her mother was a fairly well-known scholar, who went by "Jane Jones". Jones was the surname of her first husband, who she had married early, before she got known. When Mr and Mrs Jones got divorced, Jane kept the name, because it was easier than hyphenating or confusing people with a name change.

A few years later, she married a Mr Smith (Amy's dad). As far as the law, their friends, and eventually the school (etc.) were concerned, she was Jane Smith, but she still published her articles and attended conferences under Jane Jones.

I don't remember anyone having any issues with it. It's the same as having a stage name or psuedonym, I suppose.